Iran to release British sailors

The 15 British sailors and marines detained in Iran for nearly a fortnight have been formally pardoned and will be released immediately, Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Apr. 4. The 14 men and one woman, detained on Mar. 23, would be released and taken to the airport as soon as his speech was over, he said, calling it a "gift" to Britain at Easter. "After the news conference they can go to the airport and go back home," he told the ongoing news conference. "They will be going back home today." During the address, Ahmadinejad presented a bravery medal to the commander of the Revolutionary Guard naval patrol which seized the 15 Britons as they searched an Indian-registered merchant ship in the Gulf as part of a routine patrol. "On behalf of the Iranian people, I want to thank... the commander who managed to arrest the people who entered our waters," the president said. Elsewhere in the speech, Ahmadinejad also attacked Britain for sending the crisis over the arrested sailors to the UN Security Council and using "media hype." He additionally launched into a long complaint about the invasion of Iraq, and accused the UN of being institutionally biased against nations such as Iran. The news follows several days of mounting tensions and questions as to whether the stand-off would soon be resolved. Fears over an escalating conflict were soothed on Apr. 3 after the British government confirmed that the first high-level direct talks had taken place between British and Iranian officials. On Apr. 3, Iran's top diplomat, Ali Larijani, the head of the country's national security council, had spoken by telephone to British officials. Only hours before the quiet negotiations, British foreign secretary Margaret Beckett cautioned against hopes of a "swift resolution," warning that a number of issues remained to be resolved. Prime Minister Tony Blair added further drama to the situation when he suggested without explanation that there were just 48 hours to resolve the dispute. Earlier in the day, Larijani called for a "delegation" to rule on whether the British naval patrol entered Iranian waters before his government would release the 15 marines and sailors. Iranian state TV had claimed all 15 of the captured personnel had now admitted intruding into Iranian territory. The incident took place on Mar. 23 in a disputed waterway between Iraq and Iran. Fifteen British sailors were detained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and after a few short days of quiet diplomacy, both the British and Iranian governments resorted to arguing their case in public. From the outset, the British authorities insisted in stark categorical terms that the sailors were in Iraqi and not Iranian waters. At one point, the British produced GPS coordinates to support their claim, even though the coordinates were from a helicopter that London says hovered over the Indian ship that the sailors had inspected, and not the GPS coordinates of the sailors themselves. Iran was quick to produce its own evidence. The GPS unit of one of the British sailors, confiscated by the Iranian authorities, shows that the British were not only in Iranian waters at the time of the incident, but that they had crossed over into Iranian waters on five earlier occasions as well, according to Tehran. The Iranian prisoner dispute also revealed a schism between Britain and the United States as US leaders had called for tough action while British officials were counseling for diplomacy. Officials in London said that they believed their "confidence-building" operations, in which they offered to guarantee the Iranian government that British vessels will not stray into Iranian waters, offered the best hope. But Britain's delicate diplomatic efforts were set back by President Bush, who made a statement in which he characterized the imprisoned sailors as "hostages"–a phrase that Britain had been carefully avoiding to prevent the crisis from becoming a broader political or military conflict. "The British hostages issue is a serious issue because the Iranians took these people out of Iraqi waters, and it's inexcusable behavior," Bush said in response to a reporter's question during a press conference. He had reportedly promised not to raise the issue of the sailors, as British officials worried that the entry of the United States into the situation would cause it to escalate into an irreconcilable confrontation. Bush stressed that the United States would not turn over Iranian officials it had arrested in Iraq earlier this year, saying he supported Blair's view that "there were no quid pro quos. The Iranians must give back the hostages. They're innocent, they were doing nothing, and they were summarily plucked out of water." Bush's apparently unscripted remarks prompted more anger from Tehran by referring to the captured personnel as "hostages." "Any kind of comment by the Americans in support of the British Government will make the situation worse," said Mohammed Ali Hoseyni, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson. "Hence, it would be best for the American president to refrain from making ill-judged, nontechnical and nonrational remarks." Making matters worse, while the conflict unfolded, US warplanes screamed off two aircraft carriers nearby as the US Navy staged its largest show of force in the Persian Gulf since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, launching a mammoth exercise meant as a message to Iran. The maneuvers involved 15 warships and more than 100 aircraft. Although US commanders would not say when the war games had been planned, they insisted that the exercise was not a direct response to Tehran's seizure of the British personnel. At the same time, they made clear that the flexing of the Navy's military might was intended as a warning. "If there is strong presence, then it sends a clear message that you better be careful about trying to intimidate others," said Capt. Bradley Johanson, commander of the USS Stennis. "Iran has adopted a very escalatory posture with the things that they have done," he added. The exercise began four days after the Iranian forces detained the Britons. "There is no escalation of tensions on our part," Dana Perino, the White House spokeswoman, told reporters.